"Using a pinboard for wargaming" Topic

This blog posting just brings together some previous posts on how a large pinboard can be used as a gaming area for boardgames, figure games and using Hexon II.

The blog is aimed at gamers who are short of gaming and storage space.

Link link

I like the idea.

It might even help with an idea I had for a playing board that allows the use of magnets so that I could play WW2 Dogfights and have it hanging from a wall.

hmmm… time to plot and plan me thinks.

I saw your article in MWBG about this, very interesting.

Fantastic concept!!! Love it.

Thanks,

Dan

I've been doing this for a while now with poster frames for boardgames. A 24 by 36 frame will hold a one map game and costs as little as $10 USD (from walmart or from AC Moore with a coupon). The cheap ones come with plastic slides for the sides – for a game that requires two poster frames you place the slide in the middle of the two poster frames to hold them together.

Nice! As i commented on the blog, I do similarly but with a lazy Susan turntable beneath the game board, so I can rotate the battle in play.

Great idea, your comments made me check them out on e-bay.

At first I was thinking: what problem does this solve? You are just going to put this on the dining room table anyway. So you are not creating space. The idea of picking it up and carrying the board while a game is in progress, to store it away and play at another time, really depends upon your balance. So that can't be it.

I finally read the key sentence: "…the pinboard with its sturdy but light frame allows the game to be pulled close towards you on your turn, so that you get maximum reach across the play area without over-stretching…

Actually, I do find that a problem, especially with one of the games you cited, Command and Colors: Napoleonics. The tables we use for gaming at the Rec Center are such that they are too shallow for a board game using only one table, so we end up using two, which makes the table too deep. By using two tables and sliding the pinboard back and forth you can easily move the entire playing surface so it is convenient for the current player. Great idea!

Hi Dale, I put down a fleece cloth on the table and then the board on top of that. That makes the board easy to glide back and forth between players without harming the table surface. For solo play, I bring the board right up to my side of the table and it stays there – you can twist into it to extend your reach instead of leaning over – I just find turning easier than bending and less strain on the back.

The pinboard also solves the problem of anyone not having a table at all or at least a free table, you can put the board up on an ironing board (highly space saving) or desk top or whatever else is in the home and still use it.

I will put the ironing board up by the big window and take the board over there between turns when I want to take photographs in good natural light for the blog.

It also helps with making the same space twice as usable – so the same game can be played on a dining table, that part way through the game is returned to family use for a meal and then returned back to wargaming functions. It allows me to set up a game the night before it will be played, or play a 6 hour game in say shorter 2 hour sessions – or just doing a turn here and there, moving the board to the least used part of the home at that moment in time.

Before doing this, i would have to say – 'oh I only have a one and a half hour window before the table is needed, so not enough time to set up, play and then take down' – so instead I would just go and waste some time on the stupid internet :-)

The other day I had a sore back (pulled it last week). On the table I had put Command & Colors, so I had the pinboard, a mounted game board, perspex and around 160 wooden blocks, so it was both fairly heavy and of coarse an awkward shape. OK for me usually, but a strain for a sore back, so my partner took one end, I the other and it felt very light doing it that way and we just manoeuvred it onto the bed while we had our main meal and then returned it to the table.

I think it is one of those things that the various benefits of the board are more recognisable to people who have a need for one or more of those benefits. Someone with an 8' table, permanent set-up, tons of game storage and a back like a 21 year old is unlikely to see anything in the post that would be useful :-)